There is a group of pretty active bicyclists in town.
One of them is Alan Alderfer, who works at Alderfer Bergen & Co. downtown here in Warsaw.
Alderfer is what I would call an avid bicyclist. No, let me rephrase that. The guy's an animal. He logs lots of miles.
We got to know each other several years and about 20 pounds ago - my 20 pounds - when I was riding a bicycle a lot.
I used to ride to work and I even entered a few road races. I still have a very serviceable road bike.So anyway Alderfer and I ran into each other a couple weeks ago. The conversation turned to bicycles and the Fat and Skinny Tire Fest. (Alderfer is one of the organizers of that event and president of the local bike club.)
Then he cooked up this deal where we would ride our bikes to work.
He mentioned that May is National Bike Month and May 11 through 15 is Ride to Work Week.
He suggested that we ride our bikes to work the whole month of May. In a moment of weakness - if not sheer madness, I agreed.
If either of us skips a day, we have to donate $5 to a charity to be named later - probably something to do with health or kids. (We won't ride in the rain and we're taking Wednesday's off because I have a conflict.)
I live at Dewart Lake, which is 14.7 miles from the office, and he lives only a couple miles out of town. To even things up a bit, he's going to ride north of Chapman Lake each morning to meet me and ride back into town with me.
On the ride home, I'm supposedly on my own, but I think I'm going to shame him into riding north with me after work more than a few times during this odyssey.
There was a time when riding to work four times a week wouldn't have been that big a deal. This is not that time. I am not in what one would call "riding shape."
My best hope is that I can pull this off without any significant, lasting or debilitating injuries.
